The Balm Hot Mama

Can you believe this is the first product I’ve ever tried from The Balm? I’ve admired the brand from afar for ages but never actually placed an order. I was close a few times when Feel Unique have had offers on but something told me I didn’t need that X at the time. I was absolutely wrong, I DID need it and I WILL need more!

For a while I suspected The Balm was a poor mans Benefit but it’s a totally different animal, first of all it’s £10 less for almost the same amount of product. The packaging is still cardboard but it’s compact and more user friendly and although they have similar retro designs there’s something a little fresher about The Balms take on a theme. This blush (and also eyeshadow – but then any blush could be eyeshadow, right?) is 1 of 3 in the Mama Collection, there’s Hot Mama, Bahama Mama and Sexy Mama. Each is adorned by a different lady matching her name on the front, it’s just so cute. The sweetest themes definitely belong to the eyeshadow palettes but I’ll talk about that in another post.. if you’ve seen them (which I’m sure you have) you know what I mean.

All that and I haven’t even mentioned the blush yet. I initially thought it was coral in colour but upon closer inspection it’s more of a peach/pink.. There’s a good deal of shimmer so if you have particularly visible pores you might not love the finish however I find that can be an issue for me and didn’t feel self conscious wearing this. It was almost a diffused glow but the light was AWFUL when I took these photos, really grey and overcast so who knows on a sunny day.. at this point I feel like we’ll never see the sun again so perhaps that’s not worth worrying about. I’ve read reviews of this that say it’s patchy and not blendable but I feel quite the opposite, perhaps it depends on the brush you use but using the Real Techniques Blush Brush I found it easy to gradually build up colour. I am wearing it bolder than I may usually just to ensure it showed up in the photos (refer to earlier rant about grey, grey day) however you could get a really subtle result from this too. For me, I love the colour, I love the packaging and I find it really easy to work with so I can’t think of anything bad to say about it. It’s a popular brand but very reasonably priced at £13.50 when you consider a blush from Revlon is £7.99, MAC is £18.00 and Benefit is a whopping £23.50. It’s a step up from drugstore, still a treat but what I consider to be affordable.. especially given the quality!

I love The Balm, I really do – my favourite product by far is the “How ‘Bout Them Apples” cream blusher palette. They’re just fantastic to work with and wear, and the shade range is beautiful… and there being pictures of scantily clad cowboys on the packaging has nothing to do with my decision… honest!!

I like the Balm, I think their quality is really great and quite affordable. I’m all about the Marie Luminiser. Feel Unique have a sale on their products quite often so I’d wait until then and the products are almost high street prices!

I love bahama mama bronzer as a contour shade (it’s a bit too cool toned for me to warm up my face with so it’s reserved for contouring) and I own a few of their blushes but frat boy is my favourite-the perfect pinky peach shade! Emma xhttp://themusingsofem.blogspot.co.uk/